We're now a pet free home, as Molly's lovely rat Woody was put down today. Poor thing was very old (in rat terms) and had something seriously affecting her spine. In the past few weeks she'd shown weakness in the back legs, then in her front legs. A very brave Molly came along to the vets to receive the bad (yet inevitable) news, and got to say her goodbyes. She'll be terribly missed, and that cage looks awfully big and empty.
Okay, so I absolutely unapologetically love the Polyphonic Spree. When I saw them a few years back it was the first gig I've ever been to where the absolute joy of the occasion had me crying with happiness - with the first song.
And they do these hokey wonderful Christmas songs, and great Christmas shows, and it's the end of the year, and that means it's Christmas....
Imagine if you have a list of your favourite ten artists. And one of these artists; Ultra Vivid Scene has a sum total of 3 albums of material, plus a few b-sides.
And then imagine how happy, nay, how delighted you would be to discover that this artist had released a 12" version of one of your favourite singles and you never knew about it.
Really, spoken word over an anthemic electronic thing? I'm obviously going to adore this aren't I? It's got that wondrous slow build to it that I've always instantly fallen for.
Oh, in the year of Skyfall, there had to be a Bond thing. But dear god, it couldn't be Adele.
OHMSS was/is/always will be the finest Bond music, John Barry creating something incredible, familiar yet totally new to Bond. And this Propellerheads version/remix/remake/re-whatever is a 10 minute slab of over the top greatness - Bond goes big-beat.
Another one who receives scorn.... Jim Bob out of that there much loved Carter USM of old. He writes fantastic songs, full of classy, clever, funny lyrics. Always has...
Another one of those new bands, or at least new on me things... great song...
Please- Paul Hartnoll & Robert Smith (2007)
So, no Cure on this year cd thing, no Kraftwerk either. Although I did get to spend all day fruitlessly trying to get Kraftwerk tickets for their London Tate shows.
This is Robert Smith doing the vocal thing on Orbital's Paul Hartnoll's solo thing. Effortlessly manages to be the epitome of both bands. Damn good.
The video I could find is some crappy remix thing though. It gives you the vague idea of what it's like....
212 - Azealia Banks & Lazy Jay (2012)
Here's one of those moments Molly hates. I walk into a room where this is playing and immediately start going on about how great it is. Remember, that's the great thing about being old, the sheer don't give a stuff what other people think. This is just one of those great, great songs, music really drives along, weirdness goes on throughout, and Azealia Banks does a great, great job of vocals and writing those very, very, very rude words.
How rude? Well... very. I was going to put the uncensored one on here, but it really is just a little too out there.
Bloody great song though...
586 (Live at the Troxy) - New Order (2011)
And here we are again at New Order. On last year with The Perfect Kiss live video, and here with the rather bloody brilliant live version of 586. The original is good, but there's just something about this that is so wonderful - classic New Order and something newer and more Kraftwerkian...
Proserpina - Martha Wainwright (2012)
Beautiful, haunting, terribly sad....
Our Lips Are Sealed - Fuxa (2012)
Weird. Rather cleverly brilliantly weid. But weird nonetheless.
Das Testements Des Mabuse - Propaganda (2012, original 1994/85)
Propaganda are one of my top 10 bands. One of the bands that, no matter what the mood, will always always be mentioned. If you're interested the rest include Kraftwerk, Caberet Voltaire, The Cure, Carter, Ultra Vivid Scene, Steve Wynn, Duran Duran, The The, The Shamen, That Petrol Emotion.
And yes, I am aware it's 11. What the hell.
With Propaganda the situation is even more desperate than with Ultra Vivid Scene. UVS made 3 albums and a few B-sides. Propaganda have (arguably) 11 songs - I only count Propaganda as being the band from 1985 who released A Secret Wish. But somehow, I have 50 Propaganda tracks on itunes. The explanation is simple. Blame ZTT. Somehow, between Propaganda, Paul Morley and Trevor Horn, there are so many wondrous variations of each Propaganda song, all subtly different, all esoterically named, making it a fun 'gotta collect them all' moment everytime a new compilation or deluxe edition comes out. And they do come out, fairly regularly.
This version of the classic Dr Mabuse is from the latest compilation 'Noise and girls come out to play'. I was determined that, after buying both albums three times (original on casette and cd, followed by deluxe repackages of both) and the 'Outside World' compilation a while back.
And then came Spotify. A few listens and they'd got me again. Damn them. Damn them all to hell. etc etc.
Nah, only joking. Keep them coming. Whether there is actually anything else to release from just a few recording sessions I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that if it is there, I'll be sold it at some point. And I'll gladly hand over the cash once more.
This video isn't the actual audio version I've put on the Christmas cd, and yes I can tell, but it's about the nearest you get to it online at You Tube anyway.
Well, this surprised even me. Every year since 2004 (Northern Lite, Jim Bob, Moulin Rouge, Polyphonic Spree etc) I've done one of these best of my year cds and sent them out with Christmas cards. Yes, cds. Old skool.
Well in truth, back in 2004, cds were how we did things. Since then, every year I'd find myself looking through what I'd loved that year. It's never meant to be a best of new music in the year, more a 'what's been playing in my house' kind of thing.
Except I missed 2011. Somehow I was just too busy and it seemed a little pointless. After all, wouldn't a Spotify playlist have the same effect. Maybe I'll do one of those I thought. Except I never did. Got the tracks all ready to do it. And then Christmas came and went.
But this year I realised I was instinctively making the list again, getting it all set up in iTunes and in Spotify, and figured if I was going to do a 2012 (coming soon to the blog) then I may as well do a 2011 disc as well and send it out.
And then I finally got off my arse and did what I always thought I should do - write a blog post about it. Yes, yes, the irony.... I finally get a blog post out about the annual cds in the very year I seem to have made the damn blog a dead thing followed by me and no one else.
As for the mix of music this time round... it's old. Lots of perennial faves; Cure, Cabaret Voltaire, Propaganda, Steve Wynn, Duran Duran, Kate Bush, makes this possible the least forward looking of these compilations yet. Getting old or just looking in the wrong direction for music this year?
Anyway, enough prelims.... without further ado....
The 2011 Year in Music.... A Day Late & A Dollar Short - Scritti Politti (2011)
Classic Scritti Politti, except it's not, it's brilliant new stuff from a best of album.
I am a shameless Duran fan. Must admit I didn't like them until they went off the popular boil after Wild Boys. It took an old flame playing Skin Trade for me to really get it. From Notorious album onwards I was absolutely hooked.
Personally I thought getting the 5 back together was a terrible mistake, and the comeback album Astronaut was a bit crap to be honest. But Red Carpet Massacre was back to good stff, and the last one All You Need Is Now is epic Duran-ness..... and then there's the video.... 9 minutes of supermodel lounging...
Don't honestly know how he does it to be honest, keeps going, keeps delivering, album after album after album, live tour after live tour after live tour.... and no sense of getting old yet either. Or certainly no slowing down.
I have Nostalgia & Comics boss Dave Hopkins to thank for this love. He stuck a few tracks on the tail end of a C90 years back. Hooked from then on.
Cure later on, but here's Robert Smith's voice doing a fine, fine job.
Otis - Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011)
It's just fun. There's a sense of them just damn well enjoying themselves. Molly liked it as well, and always nice to share stuff that doesn't involve bloody X-Factor.
Thank you whoever it was at Dudley record library who loved this sort of thing. I got into them probably because they were in the C section when I was looking for The Cure, but those covers sure looked weird. And I was after weird.
My Cabs are definitely the middle bits, the Virgin years especially when Mallinder was doing a few more vocals. But any Cabs is worthwhile, and Yashar still ranks up there as one of the seminal moments.
Dead Souls - Joy Division (1981?)
You know, I never used to like Joy Division that much, far preferred New Order. God bless Spotify as usual. Fancy listening to one song, end up staying and listening to loads. This a fave.
With Love - Elbow (2011)
Oh fuck off, I love this. Bit of optimistic, anthemic beauty.
Let England Shake - PJ Harvey (2011)
In truth, anything off her Let England Shake album would have sufficed.
50 Words For Snow - Kate Bush (2011)
Adored Aerial, but thought 50 Words For Snow the album was poor. May revisit and adore in a few years time, it has the feeling of that sort of thing.
But this is the one featuring Stephen Fry, and it soars in that very Kate Bush way. Predicatbly silly and beautifully Kate Bush.
Propaganda continue to be a favourite band, and I now have everything they ever did at least 4 times over (up until the hideous not really Propaganda phase at least). Her voice. Swoon.
It’s Over - The Cure (2008)
Off the last Cure album 4:13 Dream, and it probably says more about my love for the Cure and how it's wavered with recent releases that I didn't actually listen to it properly, in full, until 2010.
It's a ropey collection of stuff sure enough, one for just the fans. But this final song... bloody hell. Angry Bob comes back, venom spits between gorgeous guitar riffs...
57 seconds in, a twist of the dial, and perfection....
4:40, Peter Hook sticks guitar pick between his lips, moves over to the drum pad and starts banging shite out of them,
5:02; oh, it actually is a cowbell....
5:48; frogs. Bloody magnificent frogs.
I'd never seen this before, never realised there was such a live video, until idly channel shifting one afternoon and this pops up on some vintage music channel. Stop in tracks, fall in love, a really involving version, well worth deafening the family with...
Bruton Mansions + one friend for Molly (a first for her) decamped to the wilds of Anglesey for what turned out to be a wonderful, wonderful week in and around Benllech.
Molly had a great time, and having a great friend around all week meant we had a much less stressful week than we had any right to, taking a near teen daughter away for a week.
All in all, quite magnificent. Thank you as usual to Sharon and David for having the good sense to buy a place in such a wonderful part of the country, and the generosity of letting us visit every so often.
Beach days - so much easier with 2 children - many more coffees consumed than usual.
All the usual things were done, although everything had a unique spin being a family of four temporarily rather than the usual three. That great relaxation involved with a week away, full of things you don't usually do; fish and chip suppers in the open air, playing pool in the Breeze Inn at the top of the hill, lazy days on the beach - well, days playing on the beach for them, sitting reading and trips to get coffee for Louise and I - we're not the best beach people. Lovely times.
Slate Caverns - rain doesn't matter when you're that far underground!
Welsh Mountain Zoo
Moelfre Lifeboat Day
Adventures along the Great Orme
As for days out, there were a few old favourites; Beaumaris, Llandudno and the Great Orme, and Molly's fave The Welsh Mountain Zoo (beloved by Molly and us all, fond memories of wheeling Louise's dad around the very hilly paths). But new this trip was a spectacular and hugely enjoyable visit to the Llechwedd Slate Caverns.
I never used to be all that convinced by Wales. Too many poor holidays there as a child perhaps. But over the last decade it's absolutely won me over, until it's become something quite wonderful, magical, and most importantly of all... peaceful.
I was thinking about things before the summer holiday and I actually came to the conclusion that my absolute, complete favourite place on Earth is here in Anglesey, and more than that I can pinpoint it to within about a half mile radius. It's HERE:
Moelfre Beach
Actually, it's specifically a seat, in the car park cafe, or on the wall overlooking the beach at Moelfre. I have no idea why, but I get here, and the stress, the worry, the troubles.... everything fades away, leaves me completely peaceful and relaxed. I could spend my time in Moelfre doing nothing but sitting, relaxing, occasional walks along the seafront, and I'd be completely happy.
Well, not quite true. I distinctly remember that Moelfre used to have a coffee shop a little way up that hill and to the left. It was wonderful, a perfect end to a day spent doing nothing by doing nothing in a coffee shop with cake. And it's gone. I was temporarily stunned, the day nearly spoilt.
Then I went and sat down on the car park wall again, and all was well with the world once more.
It's not perfect though. Every year they have a Lifeboat day, where the RNLI fundraise and put on a show. And we mistakenly decided to give it a go. It was hideous. Parking in a muddy field, worried I'd never get out (we nearly didn't, and frankly having a late 60s gent in a Jag get out and give the car a push was embarrassing), hideous numbers of people packing every available inch of space, nowhere to sit, very little to see apart from some overly monied tossers in boats having a lark. The only faint hope was that the Lifeboat would have some work when one of the numerous overgrown kids on jetskis they bought as mid-life crisis pressies lost control and plowed into a similarly mid-life crisis piloted speedboat. Alas, no such luck. We left early. Richard's mood awful. But EVEN that can't put me off Moelfre. I look forward to returning regularly.
Heavens, where does the time go. The idea of keeping up this whole blog has rather gone by the way it seems, but the least I can do I suppose is document at least a few of the important things. Nw I simply have to find the time to catch up. First up... a nasty little injury:
10th Dec 2011. Friday afternoon and I'm home from school, just had lunch, settling down for a little comic writing.
Phone calls from school are rarely good news, don't you think?
And this one was no exception. Molly's had a little accident on the trampolene they say, we think her arm may be a touch broken they say. Perhaps you'd like to pick her up they say.
Got to school, loaded her into the car, and did my best to assure her, on a long journey to York hospital, complete with a few brilliantly timed wrong turns, that yes, perhaps there was achance it wasn't broken after all (it was), perhaps it was merely a really nasty bruise (it wasn't), and of course they wouldn't have to keep her in (that was looking more and more likely).
York hospital were ace, which was fortunate really, since we were going to be spending a lot of time there over the next few days. Molly was amazingly brave, and only got a little bit upset when we saw the x-ray. Ouch. Both radius and ulna broken, and not good breaks either. Yes, it was definite, we were in overnight, and Molly would need an operation to rod and plate the bones. General anaesthetic and everything.
But she was ever so brave, took it (pretty much) all in her stride, was even rather looking forward to us naffing off, seeing as she'd worked out how to get the bed TV to work and was looking forward to movies through the night. We think she got some sleep that night, she assures us she did, but I'm not so sure. She'd also found the teenage room, complete with Internet. Which meant Facebook, which meant EVERYONE knew what was going on, well before we actually had a chance to tell anyone.
Next morning, another trip to York hospital car park, up to the ward, Molly's understandably nervous about the op, seeing as they're talking about cutting her arm open on her inside forearm, fixing the bones back together, and then either putting a metal plate in to hold them or inserting metal rods into her arms through elbow and wrist to hold it all together. In the end it was the rods, as we found out a couple of hours later when a very groggy, post anaesthetic little girl comes back to the ward. We've obviously done something right, as a very drugged up Molly still managed a bleary wave and a thank you to all the nurses and staff en route.
Everything went well of course, and she's just got to sleep it off for a while. A long while it turns out. Finally, around teatime, we get the news that she's staying in another night. Cue more Facebook and planning what films she's going to watch.
Finally home on Sunday, and crash out for the rest of the day.
It's never fun to break anything, but there's a certain rite of passage element to it. I'm sure Molly would rather not have gone through all the pain and trauma of falling badly on her arm on the school trampoline, of the operation, of the various problems with recovering. But I'm also sure it's one of those things she'll look back on well, memory making the pain seem lesser and the experience so much greater.
I wouldn't wish a break on her, certainly not, but looking back it means she's had a very different experience, and can tick off another of those milestones. Something she's sadly doing more and more as she gets older and older and older, a little girl no more, and daddy turns to dad, and something wonderful seems lost. But as I keep finding out as the years go by, every time I think it's gone, every time I catch myself looking back with regret that things are lost, I look at her now, at the different but just as wonderful thing she's become. And the smile comes back. Keep ticking the experience boxes.
One very nice thing about it all - after announcing her hospital stay live from hospital on FB & Twitter - we get these back from comic people; Adam Cadwell, Sarah McIntyre, and Neill Cameron.
As is the way of this blog, it's become more of a guilty pleasure to write here. It became a bit of a chore a while back, and things came to a halt. There was simply too much to do, work, home, wife, child, sleep, writing about comics ...... suddenly the writing here came a distant last, something that kept falling off the to-do list.
But now, hopefully, we're at a different place, and writing here has developed. There's no pressure anymore for me to be writing here, so it becomes simply something to do when I feel like it, in fact it's become the diary I never kept as a child, a way of recording everything for posterity. (Yes, yes, it's all backed up - I know Google can yank all of it as quickly as I can click back up everyting).
So no, don't be expecting anything regular. I may drop it for months aat a tiem, before splurging like this. Or I may fall into something really a touch more diary based, recording stuff - although to be honest I have no idea who actually reads this now. Used to be a place for friends, and comic folks to come and read, but all of the comic stuff is now subsumed into the FPI Blog, and there's less to write about personally here. Because whilst 6 year old Molly was a dream to write about, the current 13-year old iteration is a little more self-conscious and would object loud and long if I started writing about the everyday goings on in Bruton Mansions once more.
So this is it, a temporary return to a few blog posts, a promise, or maybe a hope, of fairly regular updates after this.
Although lets be honest about it, I've said this all before, and it's not quite worked out right. We'll see how it goes eh?
Molly is 13 years old. I just cannot get my head round it.
You can tell how freaked out I am that I've actually put something up here about it.
Really, it's one of those things that simply creeps up upon a person.
One moment she's a tiny, wee baby, squawking away in my arms in the delivery suite.
Next she's toddling away, then off to nursery, chatting, running, laughing, playing, smiling.
Before you know it she's away for her first day at school, looking so grown up in her first uniform.
Then you blink and primary school is gone. The secondary school years roll round and round. And finally you materialise, almost magically, in a card shop buying a card with 13 written on it.
Really? 13 already? Where did the years go? I know they're filled with happiness and laughter, I know they are, every day an adventure, every day something wonderful and Molly shaped. But 13 years? That's (give or take a few to account for leap years) 4380 days of Molly, over 4000 days of happy smiles and belly laughs.
Where did they all go?
The weird thing is, no matter how many times I look back, no matter how fondly those baby years, or those toddler years, or those primary school years are looked back upon, I still maintain the belief that I've always held: the absolute best moment of being a parent, the absolute moment of bliss, of wonder, of pride, of happiness...... it's now. It always is now. No matter when now may be. It always will be, it always was.
I had planned to keep going with Fictions the blog, had planned to do more posts, had planned.... well, lots of things.
But most of my writing these days goes into the Forbidden Planet International Blog. Not that I mind at all, but it's slightly sad to think there's no place and no time to update this.
Another problem of course is the sheer lack of material. It's more and more difficult to navigate my way through my life and talk about it without talking about Molly too much, and that's something I don't imagine she'd be too pleased with as she gets older.
Who knows, in a little while I might make the grand comeback. But for now. Nothing. Sorry
You'll have to forgive me for this, I know it's been awhile.
The sad fact of the matter is that I don't have the drive to keep writing here. So many other things are taking my time. I'd love to spend 10 minutes a day, maybe at the end of the day, documenting all the minutiae of Bruton mansions here. But it's not happening, hasn't happened for a long time.
There's many reasons for this. But probably most pertinant amongst those is the sheer amount of time, the sheer amount of writing time my work over at the FPI blog takes up. I get to the end of the night and it's too late to even contemplate writing anything else.
Take September. DC had this new thing where they relaunched every comic with a new number 1. And I decided, in a moment of all too frequent madness, to review all of them. Then, halfway through, I felt guilty at not balancing these DC reviews with some Marvel review. And of course, I had to do the usual reviews of things sent to me for review over at the FPI blog as well.
Which meant in September I reviewed something like 80 works. Now some of these were mere paragraphs. But as anyone doing this sort of thing will tell you, sometimes a paragraph to summarise a work is hell to write. Better occasionally to go to 2000 words than 200.
So I'm exhausted. It's back to school and of course I've picked up some delightful bug or other from the returning children, who seem to spend the entire six week holiday incubating viruses to inflict upon my person in the weeks we come back.
And I'm doing incredible work, review after review after review spews forth. And then I hit a wall.
All it took was one book that I really loved to bring me to a grinding, frustrated halt.
My way of working is a perfectionist's way. I have a rule that says I know I can't get to 100% satisfied with anything, so 95% satisfied is what I aim for. Yet occasionally even this isn't possible, usually with something I really loved, yet somehow can't find the words necessary.
And that's where I've been for the last week. Every night I thought I'd nail it tonight, the words would come, the review must write itself, after all I loved the book, so the words will just flow.
Sadly, not a bit of it. But somewhere in the rational side of the brain,. I've reached an accord. If I can't manage 95%, then maybe, just maybe, 80% will be okay? I think it might, I really do. Which is why I'm here. Right now I'm in that warm glow of post review happiness. Something that's taken a week to write only needs a final edit, a few pics added, and then it's done. Time to turn to the other books on the review shelf. But only after a celebratory G&T, and a sleep.
We're watching the World Athletics Championships at Bruton Mansions and enjoying it greatly. granted, it feels like something from decades ago, thanks to Channel 4's nostalgic coverage. Nothing says 1980s quite like crappy athletics coverage, poor presenters and bad graphics - and bless them, Channel 4 have managed to get all those things in so far. We miss the BBC, we really do.
But tonight it's the Race Walking. Oh christ. Why? Here it is....
You may know the rules; always have a point of contact with the ground and the knee must be completely straight at some point in the action. Look at the picture above - bloke on the far right is breaking the contact rule. And I know it's a physical thing, I understand that these walkers are really working very hard (something like 3 hour marathon pace I think) and the mental energy involver must be huge.
The fun starts when the marshalls start handing out yellow and red cards and the disqualifications start. Although frankly the advent of super slo-mo cameras makes it completely ridiculous - it's pretty obvious from these that most of the walkers are regularly breaking the contact rules. The problem is that the marshalls are all meant to do the judging by eye, which is just impossible at the speeds these walkers are going.
however, for some reason it's bizarrely fascinating to watch. Mostly because it just seems so ridiculous.
Louise and I were trying to come up with reasons why it isn't really a proper sport. Because surely, the whole idea of athletics of this sort is to go faster. And the walking event is designed to stop people going faster - because then they'd be bloody jogging. And then chaos - they might start running.
We came up with two examples of sports that could be "walk-i-fied":
Sport 1: The Luge. WITH THE BRAKE ON.
Sport 2: 110m Hurdles. WITH WALKING RULES. Or the "walk and straddle" as we christened it.
Those I'd bloody love to see.
Because as silly as it is, as ridiculously watchable as it is, you'll never, ever convince me it's a sport that should be in these World Championships or at the Olympics.
Twelve.
Oh My God.
Twelve.
How the hell did that happen?
This was the present haul this morning....
The highlight of the birthday though.....
Her new Ukelele. Now, fair enough, she'd actually asked for an electric-acoustic guitar. But I managed to head that one off by heading to the excellent Pocklington Music and showing her just how much they cost! She's still wanting one, but I think she's realised it's something she may have to save up for!
But a cheap Ukelele was a perfect substitute, and she absolutely adores it.
So Happy Birthday Molly. And just to embarrass you - 12 years ago you looked like this.....
Oh boy, just a touch late writing this - it's mid May now? How the hell did that happen. Track all the way back to early April......
We had planned it all really well, McFly were playing Nottingham on a Saturday night - we could head down, stay overnight at friends, have a lovely weekend and Molly would have a great, great time.
Well, that little play got rather messed up when one of the lovely boys (Dougie I'm reliably informed) puts himself into The Priory. And the rescheduled dates aren't quite so convenient.
It's a Wednesday afternoon, Molly, Louise and I all rush home, get changed, pile into the car, drive the hundred-ish miles south to Nottingham, park up, get something to eat and head off to the gig. Well, Molly and Louise headed off to the gig, I was ducking out.... I'm not averse to McFly, they're actually pretty good at what they do, but I'm not that big a fan.
Molly, on the other hand, is that big a fan. Huge fan. Huge, huge fan. I don't think I've ever seen her quite so excited as when she got to the venue. I dropped them off and headed to the Broadway cinema complex for a coffee, a non alcoholic beer or two and writing, writing, writing.
Meanwhile McFly were turning a midweek school night into one of the best nights of Molly's life. Or at least that's what it seemed like when I met them 3 hours later.
Tired, but happy, the Bruton family drove home, thoroughly entertained by a great band. Cheers boys, you made Molly's year.
